Rambo comes to Bollywood!

By HT

Mumbai, May 28 -- It's the season of remakes in the Hindi film industry. But this time, it isn't a Tamil or a Telugu hit that's being adapted for Bollywood. In a first, five Hollywood blockbusters, including First Blood (1982) and The Expendables (2010), are apparently being remade for Indian audiences.

In fact, these two films are already believed to be in pre-production stages and are expected to go on the floors by the end of 2013 with adapted storylines.

Kulmeet Makkar, the chief executive officer of the Film and TV Producers Guild of India, reportedly helped negotiate the deal between the concerned parties.

"The rights to remake these films have been bought by Original Entertainment (OE)," says Kulmeet, who is also on the board of OE.

The production house is run by Canada-based writer-producer Daljit Parmar (late comedian Mehmood's nephew) and producer Hunt Lowry.

"The duo purchased the rights from Millennium Films a few months ago," he says. In addition, OE is also believed to have bought the rights to remake 16 Blocks (2006), 88 Minutes (2007) and Brooklyn's Finest (2009). Work on these titles will begin in 2014.

Reportedly, Daljit and Hunt signed a $50 million (roughly R278 crore) deal with Millennium Films. OE will co-produce and co-finance all the five remakes with Samir Gupta of WaterFront Films (part of Cinema Capital Venture Fund). Kulmeet adds, "This is Daljit's initiative. These Hollywood films have very high recall value, so they make for perfect projects to remake for Indian markets. Right now, the casting process is still underway. In a couple of weeks, we should have more clarity on it."